So political we are, and political we must be—for John says so.
Wherefore I will tell you a little anecdote apropos of the Procès Monstre. An English friend of mine was in the Court of Peers the other day, when the prisoner Lagrange became so noisy and troublesome that it was found necessary to remove him. He had begun to utter in a loud voice, which was evidently intended to overpower the proceedings of the court, a pompous and inflammatory harangue, accompanied with much vehement action. His fellow-prisoners listened, and gazed at him with the most unequivocal marks of wondering admiration, while the court vainly endeavoured to procure order and silence.
"Remove the prisoner Lagrange!" was at last spoken by the president—and the guards proceeded to obey. The orator struggled violently, continuing, however, all the time to pour forth his rhapsody.
"Yes!" he cried,—"yes, my countrymen! we are here as a sacrifice. Behold our bosoms, tyrants! ... plunge your assassin daggers in our breasts! we are your victims ... ay, doom us all to death, we are ready—five hundred French bosoms are ready to...."
Here he came to a dead stop: his struggles, too, suddenly ceased.... He had dropped his cap,—the cap which not only performed the honourable office of sheltering the exterior of his patriotic head, but of bearing within its crown the written product of that head's inspired eloquence! It was in vain that he eagerly looked for it beneath the feet of his guards; the cap had been already kicked by the crowd far beyond his reach, and the bereaved orator permitted himself to be led away as quiet as a lamb.
The gentleman who related this circumstance to me added, that he looked into several papers the following day, expecting to see it mentioned; but he could not find it, and expressed his surprise to a friend who had accompanied him into court, and who had also seen and enjoyed the jest, that so laughable a circumstance had not been noticed.
"That would not do at all, I assure you," replied his friend, who was a Frenchman, and understood the politics of the free press perfectly; "there is hardly one of them who would not be afraid of making a joke of anything respecting les prévenus d'Avril."
Before I take my final leave of these precious prévenus, I must give you an extract from a curious volume lent me by my kind friend M. J* * *, containing a table of the law reports inserted in the Bulletin of the Laws of the Republic. I have found among them ordinances more tyrannical than ever despot passed for the purpose of depriving of all civil rights his fellow-men; but the one I am about to give you is certainly peculiarly applicable to the question of allowing prisoners to choose their counsel from among persons not belonging to the bar,—a question which has been setting all the hot heads of Paris in a flame.
"Loi concernant le Tribunal Révolutionnaire du 22 Prairial, l'an deuxième de la République Française une et indivisible.
"La loi donne pour défenseurs aux patriotes calomniés, (the word 'accused' was too harsh to use in the case of these bloody patriots,)—La loi donne pour défenseurs aux patriotes calomniés, des jurés patriotes. Elle n'en accorde point aux conspirateurs."